


to be so used

by moonstruckmidnight



Series: self-indulgent avatarsona au [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Statement Fic, The Vast (The Magnus Archives) - Freeform, and, and also, and the part that intention plays in devotion, but it’s a standalone, i think this happens in s4?, it really do be like that sometimes, more self indulgence because i am the single worst person at self control, reading the first fic in this series is recommended but not required, some thoughts on avatars, the spiral (the magnus archives) - Freeform, this is weirdly heavy for a Vast/Spiral avatar but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24613195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonstruckmidnight/pseuds/moonstruckmidnight
Summary: Statement of Elijah Matthews, regarding their transformation. Statement taken direct from subject, December 23rd, 2018.
Series: self-indulgent avatarsona au [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1776343
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	to be so used

**Author's Note:**

> “Love is not a thing to be so used.” -CS Lewis, Till We Have Faces

[CLICK]

ARCHIVIST

Where is it...

[Angry rummaging. A drawer opens and closes with a little more force than strictly necessary.]

ARCHIVIST

I set it down for one moment, one! It can’t just be gone!

[A pause, and then a chuckle.]

ARCHIVIST

An Entity of office supplies’ fear of being lost. Vanished from existence. [A slight chuckle, and then the sound of another drawer sliding open.] Ridiculous.

[Static rises, and then there’s a sound like someone’s knocking on glass. A window.]

ELIJAH

Yoo-hoo, Mister Archivist!

[A loud thump, like Jon’s banged his knee against the underside of his desk. Hard.]

ARCHIVIST

W-who are you?

ELIJAH

And here I thought you might’ve known me. Or, Known me. Ha. Care to let me in?

ARCHIVIST

...can’t you just open the window? And—where did that even come from? There isn’t a window here, we’re underground.

ELIJAH

It doesn’t make sense, does it? Come on. Open up.

ARCHIVIST

And if I don’t?

ELIJAH

Well, I guess I keep stealing your supplies. Your pens are really disappointing, Mister Archivist.

ARCHIVIST

I—sorry?

ELIJAH

Don’t worry about it. Anyway—choose. The death of your curiosity and your pencils, or possible mortal peril? I have a therapy session to avoid, and this seems like the best place to do it. Stronghold of the Eye, and all that.

ARCHIVIST

You have a—oh. You’re that one. Elijah.

ELIJAH

Yes, yes, that’s me. Open up, Mister Archivist. Let me in.

ARCHIVIST

[A deep sigh.] I—alright.

[A chair rolling. Footsteps. The creak of a window opening, and someone falling through it. The sound of the window being slammed shut.]

ELIJAH

Thank you! [An audible smile.]

ARCHIVIST

Why are you here?

ELIJAH

I told you, didn’t I? I have to avoid my therapy session. If I just do my own thing, Kait’s going to find me and yell at me. So. Here I am. Subjecting myself to this creepy building.

ARCHIVIST

Well, yes, but. What do you want from me?

ELIJAH

A computer would be nice. Or some nice books. Or a cat. Definitely a cat. That’d be nice. [PAUSE] Do I have to pay rent or something to stay here until my therapy session’s over and Kait can only scare me with the Dark instead of responsibility? The Eye is giving me major creeps in here. Gotta say, though, I don’t have much money. Spent all of it on ketchup and headphones.

ARCHIVIST

You could always give a statement.

ELIJAH

...me? Give a statement? [Disbelieving laugh. It crackles with static.] Mister Archivist, angel, I’m not meant to be understood. You want me. The liar. To give you a statement.

ARCHIVIST

Michael gave a statement, before Helen—

ELIJAH

Yeah, Miss Wanderer did pretty much take a chomp out of Michael, huh. Sucks. Miss him, he was a good one.

ARCHIVIST

You knew him?

ELIJAH

Yeppers. Don’t look so surprised, Mister Archivist. He was—a hand, I guess. I was...a fingernail. We knew each other. As much as any of us can know each other.

ARCHIVIST

Would you like to give a statement?

ELIJAH

...well, if Michael gave one. Statements, huh. I’m joining the cool kids club. [PAUSE] So. What do you want me to say?

ARCHIVIST

Just—tell me. Everything.

ELIJAH

Everything...? [A quick exhale.] Sorry Mister Archivist. I came here to avoid spilling my guts about all my secrets—which, in hindsight, probably wasn’t the best idea. But pick something.

ARCHIVIST

Then... what happened to you? Why are you... like this?

ELIJAH

[Audible grin.] Now that, Mister Archivist, I can do. [PAUSE] Go on, do your thing.

ARCHIVIST

Right then. [Clears throat.] 

Statement of Elijah, no last name given—

ELIJAH

It’s Matthews.

ARCHIVIST

...right. Statement of Elijah Matthews, regarding their transformation. Statement taken direct from subject, December 23rd, 2018.

ELIJAH

Thank you, Mister Archivist. [PAUSE]

ELIJAH (Statement)

Peer pressure is definitely one hell of a force when you have anxiety and also only three real friends. Don’t give me that look, Mister Archivist, this is important.

Alright, fine.

My best friend’s name is Kaitlyn Jones, and a few months after we started living together, she went Dark.

At first I didn’t—I didn’t realize, you know? She was acting a little odd, yeah, but not “oh, she’s something supernatural” type odd. Just... withdrawn, shuttered. I was worried about her mental health more than about her becoming a servant to an eldritch fear entity that feeds off suffering. It was only when one day, when she came home with a migraine and all the lightbulbs shattered, that I realized I should probably start worrying.

So Kait. I love her—no, not like that, she’s just a really good friend, and I’m not really interested in romance at all—but sometimes we have communication issues. And that usually falls pretty equally on both of us. But Kaitlyn and I sat down, and then we talked. And then I took what little information I got from that conversation and went to the real conduit of the Eye: Google.

It took me a bit before I found out about Robert Smirke’s list. Yeah. The Fourteen Dread Powers, or whatever he called them. The web—no, not that Web, you can hear the lowercase, can’t you, Mister Archivist?—isn’t always the most helpful or reliable thing out there. So. Took a few months before I found anything. But... this was one of the things I was determined about. I would join Kaitlyn’s world so she could... talk about it. 

You can’t shame me for that. I’ve done worse for worse reasons.

Honestly, I never meant to go this far. Heh. Look at me. It hurts, doesn’t it? You know, I can’t even buy patterned clothing anymore. This just... overlays it. I used to design clothing. Shirts. Hoodies. I still have a few favorites. But... it’s not the same. I wanted people not be able to ignore me. Not this.

Still. It’s worth it. It’ll probably always be worth it. It’s nothing, in the long run. We’re nothing, in the long run. Why not spend the rest of my insignificant existence with someone I matter to? To someone who matters to me?

I probably had more of a choice than most people did, when it came to this. I had the list. I was the one who had to make the choice. To commit.

Commitment is actually on the list of things I’m bad at, actually, if it doesn’t involve a select few parties. My comfort. Kaitlyn. But I knew then, that I had to commit. I had to choose. I had to dedicate my life to something, otherwise I would be left behind.

See, I was really into the aesthetic of the Eye for a while. Knowledge, and chasing after it so much that you would willingly wreck yourself for a scrap? Delicious. But, like, not really me, you know? So I moved on.

The Spiral was the other one that really interested me. You know? When you’re Spiral... you’re just a part of something bigger. Something else is driving the show. You can just sit back and fuck people over and laugh at the joke life is while watching all the tiny people who don’t know the punchline stagger around, looking for meaning. There’s no meaning in anything, Mister Archivist. No meaning at all.

Unless I’m lying.

But with the Spiral, you change, quite a lot, actually. You’re no longer you. Not that it matters in the grand scheme of things, because “you” are a concept that is tiny, tiny, and never even really mattered, actually, and “you” will be gone in maybe thirty, twenty, ten, years. Maybe less. “You” change every day, with every experience. Trying to hold onto it is stupid. But humans are stupid, and I certainly never claimed to be particularly intelligent.

I shied away from the Spiral. Chose something else. Someone else.

The Vast... hmm. I used to say I had a fear of heights, Mister Archivist, did you know that? But it was never really heights that scared me, or falling. It was the pain of impact. I’ve always been quite terrified of pain. But there’s something to being up high, where everyone below you is tiny, and you can’t hear anything but the wind. Legs dangling off the edge of a staircase. Eyes staring into the sky, the vault of the heavens.

I was raised in a Christian household. Religious parents, very religious brother. I grew up with the idea of holy judgement, of something bigger than you caring for you in a way you can’t even begin to understand. That scared me then. Now I know that the bigger thing doesn’t care about you. That it is so, so, infinitely bigger that it couldn’t give less of a fuck. That you are tiny, so tiny, that you don’t even register.

Something comforting in that. Comforting and terrifying in equal measures. 

That’s what holy feels like. Sacred is just love and fear, coming from what you can’t imagine or comprehend.

That’s what the Vast is. You love the Vast, but you also fear it. It might not let you go, if you fall for long enough. Its space is sacred. The sky is not to be walked without respect.

This? It’s familiar. And I like familiar.

So I tried to become part of the Vast.

You know, connecting with an Entity... it takes choice. You have to pick it. Over and over and over again. Consciously or not. I think you know that you now, Mister Archivist. You had to make a choice, to be come who you are today. Isn’t that right, Mister Archivist?

[PAUSE]

It’s okay. You don’t need to say it, if you don’t want to. I’ll back off. Boundaries. Just—let me know when I’m getting too close to a sore spot, yeah? I’m not the best at picking up when I’m infringing.

I think the Vast is one that requires a lot of choice. Like, with the others, like with you, Mister Archivist, you and all the acolytes in this temple, you were forced to stay. Maybe you ended up choosing to stay here, but you didn’t want to. The Web ropes you in and never lets you leave. Joining the Spiral is never really a matter of will so much as circumstance. The Stranger steals you, the End kills you, the Buried keeps you. The Vast, though, couldn’t care less. You have to reach out to the Vast, because it’s never going to want you on its own.

So I did some poking around. And Kaitlyn did some too. And you know the conclusion we came to? There’s no real, accepted way to become one of the Vast-touched. You just have to... be. And then something will happen. There is, of course, the story of that one dude who threw himself the clock tower, but. Hah. I’ve never been that dramatic. Or desperate. Rip to Mister Crew, but I’m different.

You just... you just have to genuinely love it, love the Vast, and then something will happen.

I’ve never been particularly devoted to any one thing—I don’t feel that strongly. I have to consciously choose devotion, over and over. Manufacture it, if you will. And maybe that’s influenced how I turned out. Maybe that’s why I’m half and half, instead of fully Vast. But I think that’s normal. If devotion required nothing from you, if it‘s unintentional, then why is it so valuable?

[PAUSE]

[Claps hands, and continues cheerfully.] But anyway! It’s not like devotion is actually important anymore, considering the fact that we have never been important, and so our choices don’t matter! I ended up spending a lot of time in high places, drawing, writing, listening to podcasts or music, or just... staring at the sky. Picturing myself, all the way up there, so small you couldn’t even know it was me unless you had prior knowledge. It’s easy to forget how amazingly Vast the sky is when there aren’t any clouds. But when there are... it’s gorgeous. And terrifying. Like every good thing. No oxygen, just the sound of wind in your ears as you fall. I thought a lot about falling, those days. And then one day, I did fall. Got too close to the edge. Took a step too many. Realized I could stop myself falling if I reached out. Didn’t reach out. Fell off. And then I kept falling.

I don’t know how long I spent falling, but it was definitely a while. Of course, time is meaningless, so it doesn’t matter anyway! It was definitely enough time to get acquainted with falling.

You don’t scream, you know that, Mister Archivist? You don’t scream because you can’t. You’re falling to fast to breathe. What air you can get goes to keeping your body alive, and screaming’s secondary. After a while though, you don’t even want to scream anymore. You just cry. Tears still work. An offering of salt and psyche, or something. The Vast doesn’t care, of course, the Vast never cares, but you cry anyway.

And then eventually, the Vast lets you go.

And you are gone.

I had apparently lost three days falling. Kaitlyn was not happy with me. Or, well, she wasn’t for a while, and then she realized what that meant, and—she’s still not happy, I don’t think, but she isn’t pissed. She called me in sick, which was amazing of her. She’s lovely, you know, when you talk to her, when you get close to her. Don’t let her reputation or her general demeanor scare you away. You don’t lead cults just by fear alone.

And she gives good hugs, you know. If she ever offers you one, for whatever reason, Mister Archivist, take her up on it. It’s highly unlikely that she would, but do it anyway. You look like you need a hug. Oh, can I hug you? Promise it won’t hurt. And you can say no, there aren’t any consequences, and for once, I’m not lying.

[A startled pause.]

ARCHVIST

I—ah, no.

ELIJAH

Shame. Alright. So, where was I?

Right. The Vast.

It became pretty clear that I wasn’t really a Vast avatar when I didn’t manage to properly drop a guy. He was a swimmer, practicing way too late. He probably either broke in or had someone let him in. He was a right asshole of a guy, though. You know, he spilled coffee all over a book i was reading, and he didn’t even apologize. So I wanted to piss him off, you know? Just. Hurt him a little. Make him cry. Lose himself to the Vast.

Only. I couldn’t make him fall.

I had tried when he hit the water from a dive. The ocean’s an aspect of the Vast, and I was... trying to harness it. It’s a little more difficult than the sky. I haven’t spent nearly as much time in it. ...a consideration for another time.

But I had tried to make it Vast. Make him come up from his dive to a swimming pool the size of the Pacific Ocean. Force him to realize that there’s no way out of this. Laugh as he drowns in his own helplessness.

It didn’t work. He came up perfectly fine. The Vast had slipped through my fingers when I reached for it.

I’m not ashamed to admit I was scared. It takes a kind of person to hold the Vast, and I didn’t want to think I wasn’t one of them.

I tried again when he was on a dive board, but... his jump didn’t go on forever, he experiencing the sky, he was just... diving. He hit the water. I hated him.

I proceeded to hate him for a while. Took some sick days to stalk him, because work doesn’t really actually matter, and while he shouldn’t matter either, it was easier to focus on hating him than the Vast’s betrayal of me. Well. Is it a betrayal if the Vast was never loyal to me in the first place? Is it betrayal to kill an ant that you’ve dropped sugar for?

While I was stalking him, I noticed that... he wasn’t super together. He forgot things. Important things. Like his jacket, or his car keys, or his house keys, or his car. He would check every painting he passed, obsessively. When he was in front of a reflective surface, he wouldn’t look at himself.

And then one day, he was just... gone. He got eaten. Just like that.

I should’ve ignored him, then. Left. Picked another target to feed the Vast. Spent some time falling, or floating. Gone home to talk shit about some bad Netflix show with Kaitlyn. He was inconsequential, just like me, just like everyone on this slowly decaying marble!

But I didn’t.

Instead, I did some snooping.

And one day, I woke up to find that all my books were mirrored. Binding on the right instead of the left. Cover art reflected. I didn’t tell Kaitlyn, but I think she realized something was wrong when I didn’t look in the mirror before I left. I didn’t want to see what was in it.

It kept going on. The paintings were different. Every single one I passed were just... fractals. Fractals on fractals on fractals. When I looked at my reflection, it was smiling with sharp teeth too long for my face and curls that never ended.

Of course, I called which Entity whatever was tormenting me was: the Spiral. I knew the Fourteen. And while I’m not the brightest egg in the basket, I know what reality is supposed to look like. After a couple days, I threw in the towel, went somewhere secluded, and then told it to come out.

It did. And... it was something. It looked like it shouldn’t exist. You know how Picasso does his thing? Yeah, well, take all of his pieces at once, make it animated, and make them all malicious. That was what I saw, there. That was what was looking at me. Or, the closest approximation of it, at least.

I... honestly don’t remember too much of what happened. It wasn’t much. I know it took my hand. I know it marked me. I know that I haven’t been quite who I’m supposed to be since. But honestly? Old Elijah didn’t have any clue what they were missing. This Elijah... this Elijah is the best timeline Elijah.

And that’s how I came to be in a nutshell. Happy, Mister Archivist?

ARCHIVIST

...that’s quite a lot to think about.

ELIJAH

Thank you, angel.

ARCHIVIST

Why do you call me that?

ELIJAH

What, angel? [A crackling laugh.] Oh, Mister Archivist. Haven’t you heard of pet names?

ARCHIVIST

I—of course.

ELIJAH

There you go! Now. I’d really like to get a head start on my book before Kait gets here. She might even bring Cinnamon.

ARCHIVIST

Cinnamon?

ELIJAH

She’s not technically our dog, and Cinnamon Bones Crunch is her name from my perspective—names are such flexible things, Mister Archivist. Like mine—I wasn’t always Elijah Fairchild, after all.

ARCHIVIST

I thought you were Elijah Matthews?

ELIJAH

Oh, did you! [Audibly grinning.]

ARCHIVIST

Is that not your name?

ELIJAH

It sure is a name! Can anyone really lay claim to a name, though? I’m sure you’d like to lay claim to the name Jonathan Blackw—

ARCHIVIST

I—what? Wh—how?

ELIJAH

Oh, Mister Archivist. You’re very cute, you know that? Avatars _do_ talk, love.

ARCHIVIST

I-I-I—

ELIJAH

[Staticky giggling.] I’ll be going then, _Mister Blackwood._

[CLICK]


End file.
